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Apple Ending DRM in iTunes

Quoting:"Over the last six years songs have been $0.99 [79p]. Music companies want more flexibility. Starting today, 8 million songs will be DRM free and by the end of this quarter, all 10 million songs will be DRM free," he told the crowd.

Quoting:
Apple's new MacBook lines include a form of digital copy protection that will prevent protected media, such as DRM-infused iTunes movies, from playing back on devices that aren't compliant with the new priority protection measures.
The Intel-developed technology is called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) and aims to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across a variety of display connectors, even if such copying is not in violation of fair use laws.

At least the DRM removing is a slight step in the right direction.
Of course, with Apple and MS both trying to embrace HDCP and such (doesn't Vista implement it?), there may not be too much end-user benefit.

Trying? Apple has been implementing HDCP for quite a while now. It just has never been an issue before. Two things need to happen before HDCP gets in your way:

1) You need a HDCP-enabled monitor
2) The copyright holder of the content needs to set the bit that disallows playback on non-HDCP devices

HDCP has been around for a while, but HDCP enabled monitors have not. Even most HD-Ready ad Full-HD TVs sold are not HDCP ready. Also, until recently no content owner used the bit that prevents playback (because they knew nobody had the monitors).